As I said the last time I wrote, which was a couple of months ago, I’m still overwhelmed with all the work I’ve had to do catching up after the March-June lockdowns. It’s not just doing the work that would have normally gotten done. It’s also the fact that the places I have to go make me go multiple times a week when I used to have to only go once or twice a month.
There were other factors that caused me to lose interest in this season. It was partly LSU being such a letdown for the fans compared to last year, but it was also partly the lack of interconference games and just the weird disjointed nature of the season in general.
If LSU had played South Carolina or one of the programs we don’t see much, I probably wouldn’t want to write anything today even if that opponent had been in the top 10.
What got me to write was the fact that this is one of the big rivalry games for LSU and also the fact that I finally feel at least somewhat optimistic about next year again.
When I wrote that last blog two months ago, I actually wrote about the LSU-Florida series because I believed that would be LSU’s next game.
I didn’t pick LSU to pull the upset, but I wrote in part:
[T]here has been a fair share of upsets in the history of the series, most prominently when Florida was the only team to beat LSU in 2003 (which they did in Baton Rouge), when the Tigers won the national championship. In 1997, LSU was the first team to beat the Gators after the Florida national championship the year before. The most-recent major upset was in 2017 when LSU rebounded from a loss to Troy by beating the #21 Gators (then led by current Razorback Feleipe Franks) in the Swamp. That game started a tailspin for Florida that ended in the firing of HC Jim McElwain.
I mentioned the location of a couple of the games since neither team has seemed intimidated by the other’s home stadium over the last couple of decades. Part of it is they’re at similar latitudes (the heat and humidity, sometimes well into the season, gets to some of the opponents) and accustomed to big crowds and big games. LSU has gone long stretches of time (such as November 2008 to September 2014) with no home losses except to Florida and Alabama, and LSU is often one of the few with a recent win at Florida. For instance, LSU and Florida St. were the only two teams who won at Florida between November 2014 and early October 2017, when LSU won for the second time in a row at Florida. LSU was the only team to win at Florida between the end of the 2003 season and the last week of September 2007. LSU, Auburn, and Ole Miss were the only teams to win there between the end of the 2003 season and October 2010, with LSU being the only one to do it twice.
This game also marked a return to the consistent theme of close games in this rivalry. Last year was closer than the score indicated, but the game was an aberration because it was decided by double digits with the favored team winning at home.
See my list of recent games in the series (the second section with a bold heading here).
For the second time this decade (although the two overlap), LSU has won three out of four games in Gainesville. In total, the Tigers have won 4 of 6 in the Swamp (LSU has won 6 of 8 and 8 of 11 overall against Florida). Other than Florida St., no other program has won at Florida more than twice in the same period; although it is worth pointing out that Georgia has only been there once in the last few decades.
Speaking of Florida St., I wanted to note that Jimbo Fisher went 4-0 in Gainesville (7-1 overall) as Florida St.’s head coach, so the Seminoles are tied with LSU in winning 4 of the last 6. Fisher’s Aggies happened to be the only team to beat Florida this season before yesterday. As offensive coordinator under Saban, Fisher had also helped in LSU’s wins in the Swamp in 2002 and 2004. The 2002 win had been LSU’s first at Florida since 1986. 2004 had some parallels to this one as LSU started a freshman QB (JaMarcus Russell), and it was one of the bright spots in an otherwise unremarkable year that followed an LSU championship the year before.
Russell didn’t play well in that game though and had to be bailed out by the veteran Marcus Randall. This year, LSU had no veteran there to bail anyone out; and Max Johnson lasted the whole game. This brings up the other motivation for writing this. I’m actually looking forward to next year now. We have three quarterbacks who can do a decent job. I don’t know if Johnson or TJ Finley, the original replacement for season starter Myles Brennan, can put up the numbers Brennan put up yet—79/131 for 1112 yards and 11 TD in three games—but they are both unusually good leaders for their age; and I think the coaches can trust either one.
LSU won despite having only one veteran of the team on offense, tackle Austin Deculus, who was hurt during the game. The top three targets the Tigers had expected to have this year, Ja’Marr Chase, Terrace Marshall, Jr., and freshman TE Arik Gilbert were all absent, as was up-and-coming WR Racey McMath (who was hurt against Arkansas).
Cornerback Derek Stingley, Jr., one of only 3 returning defensive starters going into the season, was ruled out during warmups. Another Cornerback Cordale Flott , one of the only semi-experienced players going into the season, was ejected in the first half for targeting. It didn’t look like targeting live (I’m starting to think any good hit is targeting when in doubt), but the point is that even the players who saw action in relief last year weren’t really involved in the win. Other than the kickers, the players on the field at the end were almost exclusively players whose names you probably wouldn’t know even if you’d watched every snap last season (and I’m pretty sure I did).
LSU did have one veteran on the offense technically; but it was center Liam Shanahan, who going into the year had never played in FBS (he’s a graduate transfer from Harvard) and had not played center.
LSU was supposed to have at least a handful of returning starters going into the year; but along with players lost during the season, many never even started it. Chase opted out before the year started. A third cornerback, Kary Vincent, Jr., also opted out of the season entirely. Tackle Tyler Shelvin, who was expected to be the top defensive lineman, also opted out.
If knocking off an opponent with 8 wins within the SEC isn’t a good sign for the young inexperienced players the Tigers had out there, I don’t know what is.
Even with a loss next week, which would make LSU the first defending national champion with a losing season since 1943, I still don’t think this team is as bad as the 2008 Tigers who went only 3-5 in conference. That team just happened to win four nonconference games, five including a bowl. By the way, LSU lost in Gainesville by 30 that year.
Maybe if the Tigers get blown out Saturday, I’ll count them as just as bad this season; but I don’t see that happening. I would like to have the Missouri and Mississippi St. games, where LSU led or was tied in the fourth quarter, back though. 6-3 right now would be absolutely spectacular given what the Tigers have been through.
To finish my thought about the quarterbacks, Johnson had more total yards (291) than Finley had in any of his five starts. Finley had almost as many in wins over South Carolina and Arkansas, respectively, which makes him at least an adequate option if needed next near; but the Florida defense is on a different level from those two teams. Johnson was named SEC Offensive Player of the Week. Cade York, who kicked the winning field goal from 57 yards, was the SEC Special Teams Player of the Week.
This brings up another positive, which is coaching. I was very down on the coaching staff early on, so this is another relief for me going into next year. It was a very good move on the part of the coaching staff to start Johnson given the relative lack of film (there was some: Johnson threw for about 280 combined yards in relief against Auburn and Alabama as well as appearing in a couple of other games) and the fact that it forced the Gators to respect the quarterback run. I didn’t like the safety prevent or whatever you call it at the end of the game; but for much of the game, the Tigers kept Kyle Trask uncomfortable. It wasn’t all blitzes (which Bo Pelini, who was also on staff back in the Fisher days at LSU, is known for), since some of the pass coverage made Trask choose between throwing the ball away and taking a gamble or sack. A couple of his gambles resulted in interceptions, one of which was returned for a touchdown. Florida had one other turnover, a Trask fumble; but LSU didn’t commit any. The Tiger defense also recorded 4 sacks to the Gators’ 2.
One other series note: Ed Orgeron is now 3-2 against Florida and 2-2 against Dan Mullen.
As for the guy who threw the shoe, ESPN had a nice piece about people throwing shoes or other things during games. The minor league manager at the end was the best. Funny he was with the Braves organization. Bobby Cox should have argued like that.
Orgeron and Mullen both had a little bit of experience with Ole Miss football over the years; but if you want to read about LSU against the Rebels in general, see my Rivalry Series blog about that. This will be the first time Orgeron will coach directly against his friend Lane Kiffin, for whom he was an assistant at Tennessee and then USC. Orgeron of course was the interim coach after Kiffin was fired from the latter job.
I don’t have anything else to add about what’s going on right now. Don’t count on a lengthy blog next week regardless. I may just update the Series blog and put a blurb here. I have some work to do in the offseason on those to make them more streamlined. I haven’t updated any of the other entries since my last blog either.
I’ll probably have something to say about the postseason even though LSU won’t be part of it. If I do a final poll, it will just be subjective. My computer system doesn’t work with some teams playing six games and others playing a dozen or so. It’s also hard to have it mean anything with many teams not even playing a single game out of conference.
The Bayou Blogger 
ACC, Alabama, Clemson, College Football, Florida, LSU, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Ohio St., Ole Miss, SEC, Texas A&M
CFP Gets It Wrong; LSU Finishes Strong
In College Football, College Football Playoff, General LSU, History, Post-game, Rankings Commentary on December 20, 2020 at 4:33 PMI’ll get to LSU, but first I want to say it’s ridiculous that two days after getting exposed by Clemson in a game that wasn’t even competitive after the first quarter, Notre Dame is being included in the College Football Playoff.
The only reason Notre Dame is even being considered is the fact that Trevor Lawrence didn’t play in the first Notre Dame-Clemson game, and the Irish still needed overtime in that one. I don’t want to say never, but everything on your resume should be almost perfect to excuse any title-game loss, not to mention a blowout. I know the Irish saved face a little with the touchdown with 8 minutes left, but 34-3 at that point is a blowout.
Who’s the #2 big win for Notre Dame once you admit #1 was a fluke? North Carolina? Congrats, Notre Dame is right up there with Florida St. and Virginia, both of whom beat the Heels! How close did Florida St. and Virginia come to the semifinals? For some reason I’m not seeing them in the top 10.
I’m not saying I’m impressed with Ohio St. or Texas A&M either, but it was inevitable in this type of season to get some questionable entries to fill out the top 4. Ohio St. barely had to play football at all, and there isn’t much reason to think A&M would do better against Alabama in a rematch than they did the first time; but at least in A&M’s case that loss is more than two days old. At least Ohio St. didn’t have to get extremely lucky on timing and have to win in overtime against Northwestern. They were a little lucky to escape the Indiana game with a win, but does anyone think the Hoosiers win a rematch? Anyone should have seen the outcome of Notre Dame-Clemson coming a mile away though.
I don’t know if A&M took a position on this, but they should be furious with the SEC office for not agreeing to any non-conference games and waiting until September 26 to start the season. The ACC could get the hype machine going on Clemson, Notre Dame, North Carolina, U. Miami, etc. No one should have been impressed by Clemson beating the Citadel 49-0 or Notre Dame beating South Florida 52-0, but it looks a lot better than not playing at all. Then the ACC gave the SEC a chance to include non-conference rivalry games, and they wouldn’t do it. It would be harder to have two ACC teams (Notre Dame was an ACC team this year) rather than two SEC teams if the SEC had a bunch of wins over ACC teams or just better non-conference wins in general. Maybe A&M could have played a Big XII team while Notre Dame was beating up on South Florida.
The committee would have probably let Ohio St. in with three wins, but if you want to make it into the top 4 for the first time, the onus is on you to prove yourselves. Apparently, A&M had no way to do that after they lost to Alabama and Notre Dame got lucky in the first Clemson game.
Anyway, I was happy to see the fight in LSU the last couple of weeks. The Tigers completed the season with a win over
North CarolinaOle Miss to finish 5-5. LSU won the turnover battle in the two games 9 to 1. Especially defensively, there were a lot of plays where young players didn’t quite know what they were doing; but I think things like turnovers and quarterback pressures showed that the players were into the game and playing hard. A bunch of players left the team, obviously, but I didn’t see what looked like players quitting on the coaching staff among those playing at the end of the year.If that were the case, I think we would have seen LSU give up after Ole Miss went on a 27-3 run. I followed the game on ESPN, which keeps track of the odds of winning. When LSU had the 16-point lead they had a 93% chance of winning. After the 27-3 run, Ole Miss at one time had an 83% chance of winning. LSU then flipped it to a 95% chance to win after two touchdowns in less than four minutes. After all that, Rebel QB Matt Corral was still less than 30 yards away from engineering the winning touchdown drive before fumbling.
Last week, I mentioned how most of LSU’s top receivers were not even playing against Florida. It was the same this week, but Kayshon Boutte looked every bit as good as the guys who weren’t there even on a twisted ankle. On the winning touchdown, Boutte set an LSU record with 308 receiving yards. That record had stood since 2001 (Josh Reed vs. Alabama). There were a lot of good LSU receivers who couldn’t beat it.
Going back to defense, I also think the turnover margin and successful QB pressures/sacks in the last two games are evidence that maybe Pelini didn’t completely forget how to be a major-college defensive coach either. He just couldn’t transform a bunch of high school players into a typical LSU defense overnight.
Normally when the other team scores 48 points, you don’t compliment the defense at all; but before the lack of depth was exposed in the second half, the LSU defense had held the Rebel offense to just two scores in the first half (they had 21 points at the half with the help of a kickoff return).
If LSU competes for a championship again in the near future, they will need to steal possessions like that to win the big games. Simply knowing your assignments and being talented on defense isn’t going to keep an Alabama or a Clemson from scoring very often, so Pelini’s approach may be what LSU needs in such a situation.
Some people say everything is all downhill from here for off-field concerns, and maybe that’s true; but if so it’s weird that the season ended with such positives in the last two games.
Anyway, for now a win is a win. To update the series, the Tigers have now beaten the Rebels 5 times in a row overall and 6 in a row in Baton Rouge. LSU is 15-4 against Ole Miss going back to 2002. Ed Orgeron is 5-0 against his former employers as head coach. This was Lane Kiffin’s first meeting with LSU as head coach.